How Facebook Affects Our Relationships

Facebook has become a part of our everyday lives; it’s a place most people will often admit to checking upon their initial wake up. Grab that coffee and sit down to your computer or smartphone, open Facebook. That’s just become the norm for many members of society. One aspect of life is that Facebook is affecting is our romantic relationships, meaning your marriage or monogamous relationship. Since the invention of social networking sites like Facebook, online infidelity and monitoring your partner has become easier than past years. The reality of life is that both partners deserve trust and privacy, so interfering with their online interactions can result in bringing up that big green monster known as jealousy. Once jealousy has snuck its evil horns into your relationship, you may as well as just wave that white flag in surrender of your relationship. Jealousy stems from insecurities and trust issues, whether logical or not and Facebook can tremendously affect us in ways we normally would feel secure.

The three major areas that Facebook can affect in our monogamous relationship are: Cyber Cheating, Jealousy, and Relationship Dissatisfaction.

Cyber Cheating

Being online allows people to act out in ways they otherwise wouldn’t act like in person. Facebook allows the doors to open for partners to like, love, laugh and wow other people’s photos. The person who otherwise is committed may act in ways that they don’t realize is actually under the definition of cyber cheating. There are many opinions on what boundaries are acceptable to maintain while in a monogamous relationship, the key is to really have open dialogue about what you deem as acceptable and if your partner doesn’t feel the same – rethink the relationship. The last thing you want is a monogamous relationship where you feel it’s one-sided because you guys can’t agree on what’s acceptable behavior or not in the Facebook arena.

What many don’t realize is that cyber cheating is easy to do because it doesn’t actually mean that you ever meet that online person. Cheating can occur in person and online; cyber cheating is all about that connection you hold and engagement you are having with someone outside of your monogamous relationship. Sadly many people don’t comprehend the connection of engaging in certain conversations with another person as being cyber cheating. Let’s put it this way, Facebook allows you or your partner to engage in a regular conversation privately through messenger in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t do in person for you know in your gut that your partner wouldn’t tolerate it. This leads us into the next issue that arrives when social networking sites are involved …

Jealousy

Sadly once the partner has stepped over that line of being friends to actual cyber cheating, jealousy comes into the room. Jealousy can be a monogamous relationship killer. While on Facebook you can navigate essentially anywhere and accidently or purposely fall upon what your partner is doing. Whether intentional or not, jealousy can rear its ugly head and wreak havoc upon your monogamous relationship, because once you see that partner is partaking in what appears to be your definition of cyber cheating, trust has diminished a slight bit. In all honesty, jealousy has neither boundaries nor reasoning skills, so the biggest reason Facebook affects relationships negatively is because the information we happen upon is all about perception. Your partner cannot argue with you over how you feel or perceive the information to be; you are entitled to feel however you so choose to and again this goes back to whether or not your partner and you see eye to eye on what cyber cheating is. If you don’t, well jealousy is going to come steam rolling in and your monogamous relationship is gone. Done. Over With. Once this happens, we lead you into relationship dissatisfaction …

Relationship Dissatisfaction

Once the issues of questionable cyber activity on Facebook have occurred and jealousy sets in, you really start to question the monogamous relationship, because you no longer feel as if it is just the two of you. Seeing your partner do flirty things in ways that make you feel unsettled and inadequate for them isn’t good, it leads to one or both of you looking for “greener pasture”. Sadly, Facebook affects our relationships however we allow it to, but it does open the door to discussing what moral beliefs each of you have in regards to regular conversations with the opposite sex in a social networking environment.

Soon after the issues with cyber cheating, whether it is happening or not, then jealously, the partner starts to see less and less updates of their relationship on the partner’s Facebook profile. Slowly little actions start to fuel relationship dissatisfaction, no longer do you feel as if you are the one and only with this person. The sad reality of Facebook is that it truly can make a monogamous relationship more difficult if that one partner truly sees no harm in how they are engaging the opposite sex, while you are stuck thinking about if this clash in beliefs will be the end of your monogamous relationship.

There is Hope

As I do with most articles, I flip it into a positive somehow, some way and in some shape or form. That’s no different with this article on how Facebook Affects Our Relationships. There are so many negative impacts Facebook can have upon our self-esteem, monogamous relationship status and other relationships in life, the thing is that social networking sites are here for the long run and you need to find ways to address issues, get on the same page and cooperate in a way that allows your monogamous relationship to continue on regardless of how these sites can affect your relationship.

While features such as chatting and email allow for the possibility of cyber cheating, the key to continuing to have a solid monogamous relationship is to keep open communication and learn whether or not your partner is on the same page as you. NO matter how many ways I try to spin this article to have a positive hopeful side, if you and your partner are conflicted in your views of appropriate online behavior, there is no way around it – given time, the monogamous relationship will ultimately fail.

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I’ll admit to being addicted to social media, of course I also use it for my job so I spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but you’ve made some excellent points about how it affects our relationships!

Facebook allows for all the bullies to come out and perfect parents. It is crazy what people will type behind a computer but in person they are probably COWARDS. And, it can have a big impact on personal relationships too. Great post!